'Donegal is a big part of my soul. It’s a safe place, that’s what I feel it is like'

Majella O’Donnell had never set foot in Donegal before she met Daniel, and the thought of moving somewhere so remote was naturally daunting. But it didn’t take long for her to realise that she wouldn’t want it any other way. 

In an in-depth interview with Donegal Life magazine, Majella shares how through all of life’s ups and downs, Donegal became her haven, a place where she feels free to be utterly herself.

“When I met Daniel and moved to Donegal, I found it a beautiful, beautiful county and by that I mean visually it is beautiful and the people are really beautiful,” says Majella.

“There is a real salt of the earth attitude with most of the people, so down to earth and always very helpful with any situation.

“I’ve always lived in towns and cities and at first I thought, ‘Oh my God, it’s going to be terribly remote’ but of course, having the flight down to Dublin is fantastic. That is a real lifeline for us because it means we can live in Donegal and just hop on a plane and get down to Dublin in 50 minutes.

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“So it turned out that I never found it too remote; I found it really welcoming. I know I’ll always be a blow-in but really for me, it’s my adopted home.”

When asked what it is like being married to Daniel O’Donnell, in terms of the much-admired public figure, and in their everyday relationship, Majella replies: “It’s great!”

Of course, in the early days, there were some mumblings of ‘oh there’s so many who’ll be disappointed’ but Majella did not take that to heart.

She says: “I think the majority were really happy for Daniel because if you thought about it, he had all that success but he was still going back to his hotel room after shows, or going home on his own.

“Not that it bothered Daniel! He was very happy being single. But once we started going out, people were very, very good in accepting me. I believe there were one or two that didn’t come to shows anymore but that says more about them than it does me I think.”

The couple have a warm and convivial relationship, while still maintaining their individuality and not feeling the need to live in each other’s pockets.

“At the beginning I travelled a bit with him,” says Majella. “I just wanted to see what the shows were like and all that kind of stuff, but I don’t go anymore now really when he is touring. Maybe if he is going to Australia because my son lives there, I might go along.

“But I tend to do my own thing. It works for us because we are both very independent.

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“Then when we do get together, we spend two or three months in Tenerife, and we just get on really well together. The conversation is always fair and I suppose Daniel allows me to be who I am, and I allow him to be who he is. That comes with age as well, to feel confident and comfortable with each other doing their own thing.”

While Majella was always very much welcomed to Donegal, there was a pivotal moment which really touched people’s hearts. Who could forget how courageously, in the face of her breast cancer diagnosis, she underwent having her head shaved live on the Late Late Show.

So what drove Majella to face this very vulnerable element of her cancer journey in such a public manner?

“Being married to Daniel, I had a voice and I thought that I should use it for some good,” she says.

“When I was diagnosed with cancer, I got this idea into my head, it was like a bolt of lightning one night when I was falling asleep: ‘Shave your head for charity.’

“And once I had that idea, I was like a mad woman making sure that it would happen, because it had to happen very fast. I had already started chemotherapy and the hair was going to start falling out anyway.”

Majella contacted a researcher on the Late Late Show, and things moved very quickly. While those around her had reservations, Majella was determined to follow through with her plan.

She recalls: “I just felt that I was doing it for the right reasons, that it was coming from the right place, so I felt it was going to be ok. I thought €50,000 would be fantastic to raise for charity. I never in a million years dreamed that it would go berserk as it did. It ended somewhere near €700,000. It was the most phenomenal thing to raise that much money. It was unbelievable.

“People shave their heads for charity but I suppose the fact that I actually had cancer made it a little bit different. I remember even on the night, Ryan did the interview first. Then there was a break, and then there was the head shave, and I remember during the break, kind of breaking down and thinking, ‘Oh my God, this is it.’

“I hadn’t really let it hit me up until then. Ryan was fantastic. He said to me when we came back on to do the head shave, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, absolutely. If I make up my mind to do something then I stick with it.’

“It turned out to be a good thing to do, thank God.”

Not only did it raise a huge amount of money for the Irish Cancer Society, it also started a lot of conversations about a sensitive subject.

“The amount of women who wrote to me afterwards was unbelievable, saying how they had been diagnosed even since me and how the fact that they had seen me doing that made it a little bit easier for them to deal with their hair loss,” says Majella. “People who maybe would have just let it fall out decided, ‘No, I am going to shave it off now.’

“For me, I just felt that if I let my hair fall out I would feel really sick, seeing it coming out, so I took control by shaving it off.

“We see women’s hair as their crowning glory. I knew it was going to grow back, but it is a difficult thing to do. You do feel very vulnerable. I didn’t even want to look at myself in the mirror after the head was shaved. I knew everybody else was looking at me, but I didn’t want to look at myself.”

Majella’s openness in tackling difficult subjects head on has certainly been for the greater good here in Donegal. She is a Relay For Life patron along with husband Daniel, and is an advocate of mental health supports and services.

The couple’s connection with Relay For Life goes back to before Majella’s diagnosis, and the event took on a whole new level of significance for them after her cancer journey began.

Majella says: “Daniel was at the very first Relay as a Donegal figure, and he was asked if he could come up with a song that could be sung at Relay For Life and that everybody could identify with, and he did that. I got cancer the year after, and of course, every year it meant something to me and I started going as well.

“And then about two years ago the committee asked me if I would like to be a joint patron with Daniel, because we always went together when we could.

“I love going every year. I think it is the most fantastic gathering, the whole ceremony, and the candles at night. I encourage anyone to go. It is one day a year to give to such a fantastic cause, because one in two people are going to have cancer in their lifetime. It touches everybody in some way or other.

“Relay For Life is such a fantastic way of showing camaraderie and support for people that have been diagnosed and to remember people who have passed away because of cancer.

“We are just delighted to be part of that, and I am looking forward to it again this year.”

Majella is also well known for her work with mental health charities, and for speaking openly about her own ongoing challenges with mental illness.

She says: “I was being interviewed by Ryan Tubridy on RTE Radio 1 shortly after myself and Daniel were married and I suppose he was just trying to find out a little bit about ‘who is this person?’ and I just happened to say in the interview that I would suffer from depression from when I was about 19. It was grabbed onto, and then other radio stations were asking for interviews, and people would say, ‘It’s very brave of you to talk about it.’

“I didn’t really get that, I just thought it was a fact of life. I suffer from depression and I certainly wasn’t going to hide it or apologise for it. And I’m a good talker I suppose, so I had people asking me would I come and talk about my experience, and I did that in quite a few places.

“And then I set up a charity called Donegal Mind Wellness to try and help people who are struggling with low self esteem, and just being low or depressed. We set up this programme where people could do a six-week course on stress control, which really helps you to manage your depression. It was really successful. You could go on this course but you didn’t have to pay anything. Whatever money we raised for charity, we put into that charity and that provided money to rent places to do the courses and to buy the books and pay for the handouts and everything else.

“It is something that I am very passionate about because it is part of my life and has been since as long as I can remember. It just comes and visits every now and then and it is something that I have to manage and deal with.

“But there is so much more that could be done for mental health, and it is an area that really, really needs a lot of research and work to help people to deal with, especially now.

“In the digital age, it is easier to fall into that state, especially with social media and young people. It’s not a good place to be and I fully, fully support charities and anybody who is trying to do anything to help people to feel a bit better about themselves.”

While there are more conversations about mental health than ever before, services sadly are quite a long way behind in terms of meeting demand.

Majella says: “People are talking about it more, becoming more aware, but then, if somebody has a young teenager who is in a very bad way, where do they go? They go to the local hospital and the hospital says, ‘No, it’s not for here.’

“It is really hard to get young people the help they need. I think there should be classes at school educating young people at a young age before the problems really begin, and teaching them skills to try and deal with when they feel bad, to see the signs and to speak up and to talk to somebody. That is all getting better, but the services are greatly lacking, they really are.”

Majella knows from her own experiences throughout her life how vital such services are for people going through mental illness, and how it can strike at any time.

“I am in a very good place now, thank God, but last year [2024] I ended up in a psychiatric hospital for two months because the depression just got bigger than me,” she shares. “I’ve been having counselling since then and I am in a much better place now.

“It's a shame that everybody can’t access that help when they need it.”

Majella believes that it is vital for all of us to get out and connect with the beauty of nature, and to have places where we can feel totally at one with our surroundings. While featuring on an episode of RTÉ’s Room to Improve, Majella spoke of how, for her, Owey Island was such a place.

“I love being able to just completely switch off,” she says. “When I go out to Owey Island there is no electricity, there is no running water, there is no tv, nothing. It is just solar lights or candles at night, so it’s really, really back to basics. And being in touch with nature, that is really important.

“For me, Owey Island is just absolutely stunning. All of Donegal is, and we need to remember to stay connected, to constantly remind ourselves of what a beautiful place it is, and we are so lucky.

“When you are in a city it’s just bombardment mentally all the time, it’s just go, go, go, go, go.

“It’s fantastic to be able to come to Donegal and walk down the road to a beach that’s empty and go for a good walk, and the wind is blowing.

“Donegal is a big part of my soul. It’s a safe place, that’s what I feel it is like; it is a safe place for me. It is a place I can come and I can be vulnerable, and nobody is judging. It’s, ‘We all accept you as just one of the neighbours.’

“Yeah, it’s fab and I love it.”

This feature appeared in our April May issue of Donegal Life. The current issue is available in shops now, packed full of interviews, entertainment guides, and more.